Dragon Rider: Prophecy of Silver
by Aaron Ledgers
Summary: Luna is an orphan who's hiding a deadly secret about herself; Silverflame and Aloe are foster brothers who fear humanity; Xaphile is a demon who believes he's an ugly creature; and when three different torments become tragedy, the fates of these four beings collide and they set out on a journey together. Can Luna ever hope to find a family and true love amongst such strange beings?
1. In the World of a Demon

**The Cursed Angel's Prophecy**

_"Somber is this day, I fear, for I have had a vision of the future of our world: a perilous shadow has been cast across the horizon, for the Demon in his Golden Armor will once again pass across our lives. He who walked abroad with the Dragons at the Dawn of Man shall once again violate the Earth. Harvests will fail under broken skies; the ground will cry and tremble; the oceans will sweep across the land; the soul of our planet will weep for what we've lost… and in the wake of the Golden One's murderous trail, Ravens shall gorge themselves on the Blood of the Innocent."_

_"Thou shall not despair, however, for hope remains."_

_"I have also foreseen the one who can save us all in the coming times of Darkness: an angel with skin as pale as the full moon will arise from the shadows to appose this impending destruction. Her eyes will burn like the fire of the setting sun and her hair will shine silver like stars on a clear night. This child will make a great sacrifice to save us all, and on the day her sacrifice is made, Silver will be worth more than Gold."_

_"If she saves us, however, the true nature of the Gods will be revealed for all the world to see, and the people of Earth shall weep, for an ancient history shall have repeated itself in a way that will stain humanity with innocent blood forever." _

_"We will never be forgiven if she rescues us from our own Destruction."_

**Dedicated to Cornelia Funke**

**Re-written by Jedediah K. Burnette**

* * *

**Part One: In the World of a Demon**

The furry tip of Xaphile's long tail happily thumped against the dusty rooftop as he watched the white-haired girl go about her business in the courtyard. His catlike green eyes were soft and gentle, but he was well aware that even a loving expression would look frightening on a face like his. After all, he was an ugly creature… even if he didn't want to be. The Demon blinked and leaned forward when the white-haired girl lowered her head in a discouraged manner, but he tried to avoid looking at his furry hands as he did so. She was the one person in this twisted world who could make him feel any sort of positive emotion, but the girl was always so sad that it _hurt_ him just to watch her on a daily basis. She was suffering, and he was helpless to do anything but watch from the sidelines.

Still, he'd been watching over her for four years without fail... after all, there was nothing more he could do for her.

You see, Xaphile had known from the start he was different from his evil kind; that, for whatever reason, he could understand the difference between right and wrong. He couldn't do terrible things to suffering souls because it practically _killed_ him inside to see them hurting normally as it was: that's why, after being given false hope by a Fallen Angel, the Demon known as Xaphile Heseroph actually set out to find God beyond the Gates of Heaven. He had entered the holy city in the hopes that the Lord would take pity on him, for he'd really had no choice in being born as what he was… but before he'd had a chance to make it to where he knew God was waiting for him, the Archangel Michael had found him and cast him out.

When he'd opened his eyes after falling from a terrifying void full of blinding light, he had woken up on earth… with a difference in his body: a huge, painful hole had been carved clean through his upper abdomen, right in the center of his chest. It was so deep that it stretched all the way through his body and actually allowed the demon to see through himself; he'd just begun to panic about the huge cavity in his chest when, from out of nowhere, the voice of God called out to him. He had frozen like a statue, for the voice seemed to have been coming from everywhere... yet at the same time, nowhere at all.

_"Only those who know Love and Forgiveness can enter heaven,"_ the Lord had whispered.

"Then I'll find someone to love and forgive me!" Xaphile had exclaimed, long tail thumping happily on the ground.

At first, the boy had thought it would be easy to make someone love him. After all, when he had been cast out of Heaven he had only been a twelve-year-old child, and there were supposedly lots of compassionate beings who were living down here on Earth. It was only a few hours later that he realized he had been completely wrong: everywhere he went, people had thrown stones or fired strange weapons at him that did horrible damage to his body… and no matter who he'd attempted to talk to, everyone had become frightened of his demonic appearance and had either run away in terror or had attacked him with cruel fists and terrible words.

After only a week of this horrible abuse, the demon child went into hiding.

He was absolutely terrified: some people had even tried to _kill_ him for being ugly.

He had been hiding in an alley in the middle of a big city for nearly six months when he was finally cornered: a group of human boys had somehow discovered his hiding place while he'd been sleeping and jumped him. They started beating the demon child with sticks, and glass bottle, and screaming more of their terrible words; he'd woken up just in time to try and crawl away, but they'd finally caught him... and they were going to kill him.

He knew because he could see it in their eye: they were simply going to beat him to death… and he was helpless.

He'd just curled up in a ball and covered his head with a frightened sob when, quite suddenly, the sound of a scuffle and shouts of anger erupted all around him: then, quite unexpectedly, he'd felt a small hand gripping his furry arm and Xaphile had been jerked upright. The feeling of his furry feet touching the concrete vanished once he was standing up, but he hadn't really understood why until he'd opened his bruised green eyes: a blanket of silver hair had been shining in front of his face. Someone was carrying him… someone was actually carrying him on their back.

He didn't remember passing out, but when he came to he was lying in an abandoned warehouse. Sleeping next to his battered body was a beautiful little girl with white hair and eyelashes. He'd felt more than a little dazed by the frozen beauty, but when he'd touched his forehead to find that all of his injures had clumsily been bandaged up in some way or another, he stared at the pretty albino girl with uneasy eyes.

She looked to be a little younger than him… maybe ten or eleven years old.

However, the moment he tried to get up and leave before she could hurt him, the girl's eyes flicked open and he froze: her irises were a startling yellow color that made him want to stare… and stare… and stare… for some reason, those large eyes of hers were utterly entrancing to him. The albino girl blinked tiredly before she sat up and put her glasses on with a yawn. Then she looked at him carefully, pale face taking on a relieved expression after several moments.

"I'm glad you're okay," she mumbled, rubbing her eyes and letting out another yawn. "You were hurt pretty badly."

"Why did you help me?" Xaphile had asked, staring at the albino girl with unblinking green eyes. "I'm the ugliest creature in the world… so, why would you help someone like _me_ when I obviously have nothing to give you in return? Why did you help someone like me?"

"I don't need a reason to help someone," the girl had scoffed, staring straight into his large eyes for a long moment; then, after a few seconds of gazing at his features, she'd smiled so radiantly that his heart had nearly stopped beating. "Oh, and by the way? I've seen worse."

And just like that, his eyes had widened and his chest had throbbed with a feeling he'd never experienced until then: the world around him had dissolved and the albino girl's smiling face had been the only thing he could see. In that moment, he had understood the true meaning of Love… and, because she had accepted him as himself, he no longer had a desire for God to change his looks or even his nature.

If this girl would love him as himself, he would be happy for the rest of his long life.

However, it hadn't been that easy: the girl lived in a society with more of those terrible human beings, and if he ever tried to approach her or get close to her, they would attack him or worse… they would turn on his Love. So, he had settled for watching the girl from afar, and he had done so for nearly four years. Currently, he was sixteen years old… and sitting on the top of a roof near the place his true love was living. For now, he was content to simply watch her from a distance and wait. He would watch over Luna Nightingale until they could finally be together.

However, that very afternoon, Xaphile Heseroph was woken from one of his usual catnaps by the sound of an incredible thunderclap: he instantly bolted upright on the rooftop, dazed green eyes blinking at the horizon before the sound of a hoarse scream and shattering glass hit his pointed ears. His eyes widened when he looked down at the courtyard to see one of the orphans, a cruel boy who was always teasing Luna, lying unconscious in the middle of some broken glass.

He glanced up at the building just in time to feel the static begin to radiate from it.

Letting out a squeak of alarm, the demon instantly leapt into the air and flew towards the sky, shivering as the ringing sound that usually only came before a massive explosion echoed in his sharp ears. Xaphile chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw that a blinding white light was shining through several windows inside the building… but not even a second later, the entire structure disintegrated in a spray of white lightning.

His eyes slowly widened and he choked in terror, feeling his heart plummeting back down to earth.

"Luna's still in there!" he whispered frantically, flying down toward the ground and searching through the wreckage. After nearly two hours of picking through the destroyed building, he caught a trace of the small girl's familiar scent leading away from the area: it was the scent he would never forget… honeysuckle, cinnamon, and floral vanilla.

_I'll find you,_ he told himself, fanning his wings as his tail flicked at the air. _I'll find you…_ _just wait for me._

Without another thought, he began searching for his missing True Love.


	2. In the World of an Orphan

**Part Two: In the World of an Orphan**

"Hey, freak, what happened to your guitar? It's covered in milk!" Alan Hastings laughed, tossing an empty paper carton into the wastebasket as he and his friends surrounded her. "You didn't happen to spill anything on it this morning, did you? Because we heard you singing! You totally sucked ass!"

Luna froze in mortification at the thought of them being the ones who had heard her singing. She always sang how her heart was feeling as a balm to keep her mind in check, but she 'd never really thought about what would happen if anyone ever caught her at it: they could use her heart against her. Luna shivered violently as she stared at her beloved instrument, but she felt no need to respond to their antagonism and firmly locked her jaw: they didn't deserve to hear her speak.

Nobody at the orphanage did.

"There you go with the quiet act again," the second boy snapped, abruptly shoving her forward. Luna's eyes went wide in surprise when she flew forward, but she let out a squeak when the third boy stuck his sneaker out and tripped her: unable to keep herself from falling, she hit the ground hard and bashed her elbow on a desk. Her head flew up the instant after she landed, and she knew for a fact that there was a startled expression on her face when the boys began laughing uproariously. She rarely had any form of expression because of all the pain she'd been through: for these guys, it was a rare treat to see her look startled. Luna stared at the ground and smoothed her expression out, putting her mask back on as they laughed. She would deal with the pain in silence: tears would never spill down her face.

She had promised herself not to cry a long time ago.

"You know I heard about it, right?" Alan laughed, still mocking her; the small girl twitched, yellow eyes becoming huge when she realized what he was saying. "You didn't think you could really hide it from us, did you? It's kind of sad, really, that you thought you could keep it a secret by keeping your mouth shut around us. I mean, after all that trouble, it still didn't work!"

"Yeah!" the third boy laughed condescendingly, kicking her ankle; Luna bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut as a flash of agony rocketed up her leg. "You were abandoned in a warehouse by your own parents, weren't you? I mean, who would want _you?_ Your own parents _ditched_ you... and honestly, I don't blame them: whenever I think about how ugly you are, I sometimes throw up in my mouth. Just _looking_ at you makes me feel sick to my fucking stomach. You're just so... _ugly."_

"With those creepy yellow eyes and all that nasty white hair," the second boy added with a thoughtful expression, "I'd have killed you instantly if you had been my daughter! I mean, you're so pale and small that you look half dead, and your face us just... ugh! Seriously, I almost feel sorry for your parents! They gave birth to a _monster_!"

_Oh…_ Luna murmured silently, yellow eyes softening in immense relief. _Thank God... they didn't find him._

Letting out a sigh of relief that they hadn't found out her secret, the girl slowly began to crawl back into her temporary wheelchair. She had been in an accident a few days ago and the doctor had forced her to use it even though she could still walk fine when the cast was on. Unfortunately, neither she _nor_ her doctor had anticipated this situation. Before she got back into the chair, Alan stuck the handle of an umbrella behind her cast and yanked her leg out from underneath her body. With another startled yip of pain, Luna crumpled back down to the ground as her arms buckled. She shakily smoothed her expression out once again and retained her emotionless demeanor.

"You know, even the teachers are saying you're creepy!" Alan laughed, waggling the umbrella mockingly.

When she still didn't respond, they began kicking her: Luna's eyes went wide in pain and she instantly buried her face in her arms, tensing her muscles as the blows to her ribcage and legs began to pick up pace. The girl endured the pain for what seemed like hours despite the fact that she wanted to get up and run away crying: she wouldn't let them see her tears for anything. She had to be strong and take the abuse... she had to endure this torture like every other torture she'd lived with so far. She had gone through far worse than this in the past, so she could definitely handle a few bullies beating on her without making a single sound.

However, as it turned out, she didn't need to: the door flew open without warning and a beautiful girl with long brown hair walked in.

"Alan, what are you doing in here?" she asked in confusion, blinking at the boys with confused dark blue eyes when they froze. "You told me at lunch that you were heading over to your class since you have a huge test today, but this is _my_ class... and on top of that, why the heck are those guys in here with you? What were you all doing in here? Were you... possibly waiting for me?"

"Erika," Alan chuckled nervously, "yeah, these guys are my friends and we, uh... were..."

"Were what?" Erika asked, looking at all of them blankly when he trailed off; then she saw the milk-covered guitar case and her eyes flashed to the trembling albino girl lying on the floor. The brunette bristled in shock, blue eyes going wide with anger before she turned and thrust her head out the door. "Alice! Hurry, go get a matron! Make sure it's someone who can handle a huge problem without going overboard, like Julie or Rose!"

A startled, muffled voice wafted in from the hallway.

"PLEASE!" the brunette cried. "Three boys are beating up a _girl_ in here!"

"What the fuck, Erika?!" Alan hissed, kicking Luna in the shoulder. "Why are you sticking up for this freak?!"

_"What_ did you just call her?!" the brunette shrieked, mouth dropping open. "Get out of here! Now! MATRON, HELP!"

"Shit, let's get out of here!" Alan spat, darting for the door and running through it with his friends.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Alan!" the brunette shrieked, sticking her head out the door. "I thought you were different! We're over!"

_Ow... I'm going to have a few bruises tomorrow,_ Luna muttered silently, slowly sitting up and rubbing her sides.

"Hey, are you okay?" Erika asked, darting over and trying to help her up; the pale girl smacked the hand she used to grip her arm before climbing to her feet on her own. "Ouch! Hey, why did you hit me? Are you all right? Did they hurt you anywhere?"

"Everyone's unhappy," Luna muttered, gentle voice breaking the stillness of the room for the first time.

"Huh?" the brunette asked, turning to look at her with a confused expression. "What are you going on about?"

"They probably just wanted to hurt someone who's unhappier than they are… I should just let this go," Luna mumbled to herself, face finally twisting up with the urge to cry. To keep herself from bursting into tears in front of a stranger, she snatched her bag and hastily wheeled out of the room—thigh-length hair flying behind her like a shimmering blanket as she went: the girl's locks were so fine that they were practically weightless.

"Hey, hold on!" Erika cried, following her out of the room and chasing her down; she finally managed to grab onto the wheelchair handles, and with a firm yank she held Luna back; the albino girl refused to look at her, and her yellow eyes were extremely distant. "Come on, Luna… don't treat me like this. I'm sorry my boyfriend is such an ass, but that's just the way he is! Look, let me make it up to you! I'll clean your guitar case if you promise not to hold it against him... he probably didn't mean whatever he and his friends were doing to you a few minutes ago, honest. He's just been through a lot of unpleasant things recently... dead serious."

"If you leave me alone, you can clean it up," Luna muttered. "I just want to be left alone, so let's get this over with."

Several minutes later, the pale girl was sitting in the girls' bathroom while her acquaintance cleaned her guitar.

"I think the stain is coming out," Erika stated, eying the old black leather before she continued to scrub. "He must have put some sort of dye in it. I've never heard of milk that left a green stain before."

"Thank you for helping me," Luna stated softly, "but you can go finish lunch: I'll be fine, and I can clean it up from here."

"You can stop with the emotionless act anytime now! We're alone in here, and I already know it's fake!" the brunette sighed, whipping around and shoving the guitar case into her small hands. "I've been watching you ever since my parents died and I was forced to live here, Luna! The other orphans are mean to you even though they don't know you: they make fun of you because they think you're strange-looking. Yet, you never stand up for yourself! You never speak what's on your mind! Instead of doing anything, you go to the classroom each day and cry for hours!"

Luna's head snapped up and she stared at Erika with wide eyes, not even realizing that her mask had slipped a little bit.

"Who told you that?" she whispered, huddling down and staring up at the glaring brunette. "Who told you?!"

"No one told me," Erika retorted, face pulling into a deep frown. "On my second day here at the home, I was cleaning up Alicia Kensington's bedroom after her adoption... and you happened to catch my attention. Before then, I hadn't actually seen you in person, but I'd heard rumors from the other kids that you were really scary-looking and that you didn't talk much. What I saw that day didn't match up to what I heard... you were sitting on one of the desks strumming your guitar, your hair looked like starlight, and your _eyes..._ well, they were unlike anything I've ever seen before. They looked like they were on fire because of how the sunlight was coming through the windows... it was really pretty. Then you suddenly stopped playing your guitar and buried your face in your knees: it took me almost ten minutes to realize that you were actually crying."

"Why?" Luna demanded, yellow eyes sharpening into a glare. "Why did you sit there and watch me cry?"

"I wanted to do something to make you _stop_ crying," Erika retorted kindly. "Plus, it was three years ago, so stop fussing and just… _trust_ me!"

Luna stared at Erika Sanders with a blank expression, but uncertainty _did_ flit across her pale face.

She did, in fact, have a very big problem at the moment… a puppy.

Luna had found a six-week-old Siberian husky that had been starving to death when she'd come across it, and the pale girl had been feeding it most of her meals to keep it alive and healthy… but at the same time, she was taking a huge risk: the nuns would toss her dog back out on the streets if they found him, and there was no possible way to keep him healthy at the rate she was going, so she needed some form of help. The albino girl had come to love the animal fiercely, and she knew she could never let anything happen to her dog, but the matrons were starting to notice that she was getting much thinner.

She was actually starting to look ill because of how many meals she was skipping for his sake.

"If you ever want to talk, just say so," Erika sighed, sapphire blue eyes softening. "I'll listen, and I promise I'll stick up for you, okay?"

The fifteen-year-old albino girl stood there for a long moment, opening and closing her mouth as she stared at the brunette with a strained expression… but then she nodded with a slow blink behind her glasses and left the room with her guitar.

She wouldn't give into the urge to break down just yet: she would wait.

However, later that day, Luna was called to the office and hadn't had any time to take her school uniform off because of it. She was now standing in front of the Head Matron as her already-shattered heart lost another piece of itself: the woman was watching with a sympathetic expression as the girl stared at her rejected adoption papers with blank yellow eyes. Luna was holding the paper with steady hands, but Julie could tell how badly she was really hurting: she knew that, although the child wore an emotionless countenance, her heart was coursing with pain.

"There, there, Songbird," Head Matron Julie sighed comfortingly when the girl finally lowered her head.

At the sound of her voice, Luna involuntarily clamped her hands together and locked her jaw, legs shaking as she crushed the adoption papers by accident. The girl's body trembled violently for a moment, but when she sank to her knees and let her arms and head go limp, the gathered matrons shared a worried glance; from behind the curtain of white hair that was hiding the albino girl's normally stoic expression, crystalline drops began to fall onto her lap and darkened the crumpled paper with soft sounds. Matron Julie felt her heart lurch: Luna Nightingale was actually crying in front of her for the first time ever.

The woman had known the girl since she was six years old, but this was the first time she had seen Luna reduced to tears.

"Luna," Matron Julie whispered, biting her lip as her own hands began to shake. "It'll be okay."

"Nobody will ever want me," the girl muttered brokenly. "It was only luck that the Mizuki family adopted me."

"Songbird!" Matron Anna gasped, staring at the girl in dismay. "That's not true and you know it! Are you upset because you'll _change_ in three days?"

"NO! And you can't _prove_ that I'm lying, either!" Luna bitterly retorted, lifting her glasses and rubbing her streaming eyes. "Everyone hates me! They call me a freak because of my freaky hair and creepy eyes, and they say they I'm so ugly that they want me gone for good! The other kids hurt me whenever they can, I'm always being bullied by people in school, and nobody wants to adopt me because of how weird I am! According to everyone else, I'm pathetic, I'm a freak, and I don't even deserve to be cared about! Yet, the worst part of all this is that I _know..._ I _know_ that every time those nasty kids harass me, there's a bit truth in everything they say! I'm sick of being a freak! I just want to leave this horrible place!"

"Who are the ones saying these things?" Matron Rosemary demanded. "I want to have a talk with them about racism."

"Forget talking, I'd prefer to punish them the old-fashioned way!" Matron Maria snapped, folding her arms. "One hundred spanks with a paddle seem like a fit punishment for being cruel to a girl in a house of God… especially someone like Luna, who has so many hidden problems."

"This is terrible!" Matron Anna exclaimed with fire in her eyes. "Why would such a large group of teenagers single out the girl who never does anything wrong, especially in a place like this? This is just absurd! Just utterly absurd, I tell you! She has enough on her plate as it is!"

"Oh, Luna," Matron Julie finally sighed, ignoring the other women in favor of kneeling down beside the crying girl and wrapping her arms around her. "It'll be all right, dear… there will come a time when someone will love you unconditionally, even with your faults. Believe me: there will be someone who'll love you even on the night of the _new_ _moon_, okay? We're not the only ones who'll help you hide your secret... I promise."

"No, there won't, so don't try to make me feel better by telling me such pretty little lies," Luna sneered, shrugging off the woman's embrace before she got to her feet and limped out of the room. "I'm so tired of being lied to that I feel sick. My heart can't take it anymore, so just... _don't."_

The women stopped their arguing and stared after her when she left, but Matron Julie's eyes saddened even further when she noticed that Luna had left the tear-stained adoption papers on the floor with no intention of ever picking them up again.

"This is the fifth rejection this month," the woman sighed, "I can't even imagine how badly she must be hurting."

**TXXXXXT**

Three days later, Luna decided to take up Erika on her offer... and she hesitantly sought her out to ask for some advice.

"Erika? I have a problem, so do you think you could listen for a minute?" Luna asked in a neutral voice; however, she shrank into her baggy sweatshirt and hid her lower face like a turtle until only her glasses, her eyes, and the top of her small nose were left showing above the cloth. Three days had passed since her rejected adoption and she desperately wanted to talk to someone about her struggles, but even though she really did feel like Erika was trustworthy enough, Luna was still worried about being betrayed by the girl. She was breaking her own rules again by taking this leap of faith: trusting people had always been hard for Luna… especially since so many people had abused the little trust she'd given them.

"Wow, I never thought I'd hear that from _you,"_ the older girl choked, face brightening up in an instant. "What's up?"

"Well…" Luna droned, skittishly shifting her weight before she glanced away with uneasy yellow eyes. "Okay, look... this is against the rules and I know I could get in huge trouble, but... uh, I have a puppy, and he's been really sick ever since I found him. The thing is, I've been keeping him alive using most of my own food rations... but now I'm scared that he's going to die. I mean, he's acting all weird and I'm nervous because I don't know what I'm doing… so, I need your help…"

"Wow, you're quite the daredevil!" Erika squealed, clapping her hands. "I've always wanted a friend who owns a dog! Is he cute? Does he have fuzzy little ears and a pink nose, or does he have long droopy ears and a black nose? Oh, or does he—"

"I think it would be easier just to show you," Luna finally sighed, looking away to hide the faint smile of relief that crossed her lips. "He's tied to the fence near the cherry tree that towers above the parking lot. Come on, I'll show you."

"Okay!" Erika laughed, setting her book down and following her with an excited expression. Five minutes later, the two girls were outside in the courtyard and kneeling in front of a yipping little ball of absolutely _adorable_ fuzz.

"This is my Little Bandit," Luna quietly introduced, rubbing the mewling and yapping husky behind the ears as he nuzzled her slender legs. "I call him that since he's been stealing all of my food. He's a bit of a sneak, too... sometimes he snatches my portion right out of my hands, but that's also why I love him so much. It's just a part of his adorable personality."

"He's… so… so…" Erika breathed, face blanking for a moment. "HE'S SO CUUUUUUUTE!"

"Shhh!" Luna hissed, face going white. "Don't tell the whole orphanage about him!"

"Something bad would happen if the matrons ever found such a sweetie," Erika whispered, clamping both hands to her mouth; after a moment, though, she smiled reassuringly and murmured, "Don't worry, you can trust me with your secret!"

"Thanks, Erika," the small girl replied, staring at her dog with soft eyes from behind her glasses.

"I'm going to head inside and finish my book," the brunette sighed, getting to her feet. "I'll save some of my lunch for him tomorrow afternoon, so don't worry about starving yourself anymore. Also, watch to see if he eats any grass after the meal: if you feed him something that makes his tummy hurt, he'll attempt to eat it. That could be a clue on what not to give him."

"Thanks," Luna stated, blinking as the girl left without another word.

A few hours later, the girl had long since tied up her dog again and retreated to the orphanage's kitchen.

Matron Julie wouldn't be tying her up for another hour since the sun was still up, so she pulled a cook book off the shelf and decided to pass the time by scanning some of the recipes. She soon began daydreaming about the day she'd be able to use them and make someone smile. Alternating between memorizing a new food recipe and staring out the window with her chin planted on her palms, Luna Nightingale thought about Erika Sanders and wondered whether the nineteen-year-old would want to go swimming in the river with her sometime. The sunlight reflected off of her oval spectacles as she watched birds flit around outside the window, but she actually felt compelled to smile when a warm breeze ruffled her long white hair. At the moment, she was almost completely happy.

Unfortunately, life was cruel…

"Hey, freak!" a voice trilled in a singsong tone, startling her and killing off her good mood at the same time.

Luna's thin eyebrows came together and an instinctive scowl flashed across her face when she recognized the person it belonged to, but she quickly wiped her emotions off her face and put her expressionless mask in place: Alan waltzed in a few seconds later, shoving his hands into his pockets with a pretty big grin on his handsome face. She didn't like that smile at all. He only smiled at her like that when he'd figured out a new way to torment her.

"What do you want?" Luna inquired softly, gentle monotone never rising above a soft murmur.

"Did you really think you were smart enough to fool us?" Alan inquired, looking at the white-haired girl with an evil smirk on his face. "Did you think you could really outsmart someone like me? Well, you were wrong… _freak_."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Luna demanded quietly, lifting her head off of her hands and staring at him in puzzlement. When he grinned and nodded out the door, the sound of wailing puppy froze her blood solid: the fifteen-year-old girl's pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks behind her glasses and she flew to her feet when the other two boys walked in. One of them was holding her Little Bandit and letting him dangle from a rope around his neck.

"I think a cute little friend of yours wants to say hello," Alan sneered, making the girl's small pupils dilate in fright.

"You bastards!" Luna shrieked in horror as her mask shattered into a million pieces. "Let go of my dog! Let go of him!"

And without another word, the small girl bolted forward to save her puppy.

As she was passing by the first boy, he hit her squarely in the jaw and knocked her glasses off of her face; dazed by the unexpected attack, she jerked in alarm when he clamped his thick arms under her own and pinned her small body against his chest. She writhed and squirmed as blood began to trickle from her lip, but she couldn't get away; eventually she went limp, able to do nothing but glare as they held her only friend in their clutches. However, when they all began to laugh at her, the girl fought to get free yet again—this time with hysterical shrieks and curses. She was soon forced into stopping, though... and not at all gently.

"Stop struggling, freak," Alan chuckled mockingly. "You're not going anywhere!"

"Let me go!" Luna squealed, kicking at the boy's legs and snapping at his arms with her teeth in an effort to get free. He only clasped his hands behind her head and shoved forward, causing her neck to pop since his arms were already looped under hers. She let out a cry as stars exploded behind her eyes; it took almost a full minute before her sense of feeling completely returned to her body, and even then there was an odd tingling sensation

"If you move, I'll do it again!" he taunted when she righted herself, gasping for air as pain shot through her body.

"Stop it!" Luna whined, weakly tossing her head from side to side and flinging her hair around. "No more!"

"You know what? This is the first time I've ever seen you get upset, Luna," Alan pondered, coming up to her and leaning down so they were face to face. "You don't laugh, you don't cry, and it's really creepy… you don't even look like you have the capacity to _feel_ anything at all. So, I want you to cry for me, little freak! I want you to cry and beg for me to let him go, otherwise I'll make your precious little puppy do all of that _for_ you. Does that sound like a good deal?_"_

A surge of rage ripped through Luna's chest upon seeing the nasty sneer on his face, and in a fit of fury she brought her knee straight into his gut with a snarl. When he doubled over with a curse, the boy restraining her cracked her head so hard that she blacked out; when she finally swam out of unconsciousness, it was only because Alan had doused her in cold water and slapped her awake. She instantly blinked in confusion, but she squealed in anger and pain when she was dragged to her feet by her long hair. She grit her teeth and glared at Alan as her head was jerked back: the boy was forcing her to look up at Alan's face.

"Stupid move, bitch!" he spat, then turned to his buddy and stated, "Kick the dog, and Salem... make sure she sees it."

"No! Don't do it!" Luna croaked out, pupils dilating in horror as the boy gripped her hair and forcibly turned her head; her command was utterly ignored, and the boy holding Bandit threw his arm forward and sent his foot straight into the Husky's ribs. He let out a yelp as he smashed into the wall, but then he let out a keening whine and tumbled to the floor in an awkward position—where he continued yelping loudly in pain. Luna's entire body twitched when Salem laughed loudly.

"Nice kick," Alan laughed, clapping in a mocking fashion. "You could make the football team."

"S-stop..." Luna whispered, breath catching in her throat as her eyes widened; she began to tremble as her chest throbbed, pulsing with a familiar agony that told the girl her heart was being ripped in half. Just like it had when her first Guardian had been hit by a car saving her life, and just like it had on the day the Mizuki family had died because of her... the day that they were murdered by someone who'd wanted to use her darkest secret for their own personal gain.

"I think I felt something snap when I kicked him!" the boy sneered, thrusting his fist into the air.

"Stop it!" Luna shrieked, thrashing around wildly. "I'll do what you want! Just don't hurt him anymore!"

"This is getting more of a reaction than teasing her directly ever did!" Alan laughed, rolling his eyes; Luna watched with dilated pupils as he walked over to the table and picked up the vase resting on it, trembling violently as he slowly dumped out the flowers. Her stomach abruptly twisted and she felt light-headed when he walked over to where his friend was sitting.

"What're you gonna do with that," the smaller boy asked.

"You'll see," Alan snickered, shooting an evil look straight into Luna's shimmering eyes. "Just keep holding it down."

"D-don't!" Luna choked, watching with huge eyes as his arm slowly ascended; then it came down with crushing force and she twitched as a sickening thud and a puppy's shriek of pain filled the room. She watched helplessly as his arm ascended and descended with that same horrifying movement, throat locking up. The faces of her tormenters contorted into nasty grins as they bludgeoned her dog to death, and she was unable to do anything but watch them.

She couldn't do anything to save her dog.

"Hah, his tongue's sticking out," the smaller boy laughed. "Gross."

"This can't be happening," she whimpered, trembling all over and letting her head go limp as the agonized screeches of her dog filled the air. When the sound of the animal's torture continued, Luna's knew she had to make her decision before it was too late; as soon as the perfect bargaining chip crossed her mind, the girl whipped her head up and shrieked, "Alan, stop doing this to him, _please!_ I'll let you hit _me_ instead if you stop hurting _him!_ Please, please... I'm begging you..."

"Excuse me? You'd really go that far for a flea-bitten mutt like this?" Alan snorted, holding back his hand for a moment and glancing at her surprise; her golden gaze never changed or wavered in the least, and that made his eyebrows rise. "Damn, she's dead serious! Leroy, take over beating the dog while I have some fun with the monster bitch… I might as well take the opportunity to use her as a punching bag since she practically just asked me for it."

"Gotcha," the smaller boy snickered, taking the vase and watching as his buddy moved toward the girl.

"No! That wasn't the deal!" Luna cried, shaking her head. "If you want to hurt me, then all of you have to stop hitting my dog!"

"I never agreed to anything," Alan pointed out, cracking his knuckles with a sadistic grin; Luna braced herself when he drew back his fist, but she doubled over in pain when it connected with her stomach. She was jerked upright a second later and another fist connected with her cheek—sending her head snapping to the right. After that, she went into a sort of daze... she was only aware of the pressure connecting with her body, not the pain from the blows: her body slowly went limp.

"I KNEW IT!" a garbled voice screamed, and everything halted as the door flew open; Luna's looked up with hazed eyes when Erika sprinted into the room and charged around the table. However, she immediately came skidding to a halt with a horrified expression and her shoulders sagged as her mouth slid open. "Oh, my God… what the hell did you _do_ to them? Stop it right now! You guys could go to jail for this! Let go of her right now before I get Matron Julie and the other nuns!"

"Why should we stop?" Salem snickered, looking amused when Luna went limp. "You were the one who told us about the mutt, Eri! You were practically bragging about how much the monster bitch cared about it, so we thought we'd have fun!"

_"What?!"_ Luna squeaked, head whipping up so she could stare at the brown-haired girl with huge golden eyes: the expression on her pale face said that she'd just been punched harder by the brunette than any of the boys. "Erika, you…?"

"You fucking _liar!_ You assholes cornered me and threatened to _rape_ me if I didn't tell you what she was hiding! When I still said no, you guys all threatened to hurt _Luna _if I didn't say anything!" the brunette cried, waving her arms around until she noticed the broken expression on Luna's face; she instantly gasped and clamped her hands over her mouth, backing away from the girl. "Oh, my God… I'm so sorry! Luna, I _swear to God_ that I didn't mean for any of this to happen! I didn't mean to tell them about Bandit, I promise! I'm so sorry!"

"Eri..." Luna tried to say, but the words failed her and she hung her head weakly: she had no energy to speak anymore, and her mouth felt as though it had been locked shut. She had been betrayed… she had been crushed by someone once again.

Her hopes had been destroyed.

"Aww," Leroy pouted, tossing the bloody vase to the side. "He stopped moving!"

"What?" Alan asked, taking a look around the table before he burst out laughing. "Holy shit! You fucking killed it!"

"No way… you... you _murdered_ her dog? He's _dead?!_" Erika whispered, eyes filling with tears before she thumped to her knees. Luna twitched at the sound of the word _dead,_ but then she noticed that something moving under the table and glanced up at it through her disheveled bangs. However, when she saw a pool of blood slowly spreading out from beneath the wood, her eyes jolted open wide. Luna made an incoherent attempt at saying something aloud, but nothing came out of her mouth: the sight of the blood had frozen her throat, and she could do nothing except feel sick with the pain spreading through her body. Still trapped in the arms of a boy who'd helped murder her only friend, the girl's mentality finally snapped. And she felt something inside her soul… begin to change.

In that moment, there was no sound... aside from an unloved girl's heart shattering into a million pieces like shards of broken glass.

"Dead…?" Luna whispered softly, trembling coming to an abnormal halt as her large pupils contracted into pinpricks: memories of all the people she'd lost resurfaced with crushing force, smothering her consciousness and dragging her all the way back down to the pits of hell. "No… no, no, no! _No! _NO! He _can't_ be dead! He's all I have left! Without him, I'm all alone again! It's not true, it can't be! I can't be alone again! Please, give him back to me! I'm begging you! Just let me go and give him back so I can be happy! _Please!"_

"Aw, are you sad about your dead little puppy?" Salem sneered in a sardonic baby voice, cracking her neck forward. "We can't hear you _crying,_ monster girl! You have to cry louder so the rest of us humans can hear it! We want you to bawl like a baby! Come on, freak, you can do it! _Cry!"_

"Stop it!" Erika shrieked, bolting forward and pulling at his arms before frantically darting over to Alan with a furious expression on her face. "I swear to God, make him stop doing that or I'm calling the cops on all of you! I don't give a shit if you _are_ my ex boyfriend, Alan, this is too fucking much... you're a murderer! You're a sick, evil, conniving little killer, Alan Hastings! Make him let her go, right now, or I'll go get someone!"

"Why should I?" Alan sneered, slapping Erika in the face and making her stumble back with a stunned look. "You're an idiot, Erika: do you see that _thing_ over there? Does it _look_ like a human to you? No, it doesn't, so how could you side with that freaky albino bitch instead of us? You know what? You're starting to look like just as big of a freak as Luna is, Erika… so, maybe we should let you enjoy the fun she's having with us right now, too. Does that sound like a good idea?"

It was around that moment that the sun set… and a change began to take place in Luna's body.

"Stop it…" the girl hissed, making everyone freeze. "Stop hurting me… stop tormenting me… stop betraying me... let me go."

"L… Luna?" Erika whispered, staring at her in alarm when the girl's breathing began to grow erratic.

However, when Luna Nightingale slowly lifted her head, every single person in the room froze like a marble statue: the girl's pupils had become so small that they were virtually non-existent, glowing red marks had begun winding down the sides of her face, and her long hair soon began to billow out around her body like a cloud of silver fire. A flood of silent tears abruptly trickled down her cheeks like miniature waterfalls as she stared unseeingly at the wall, teeth clenched and mouth trembling: her eyes suddenly flashed with a spark of blue light and the fluorescent bulbs overhead immediately exploded with several popping noises.

The teenagers in the room ducked as the deadly glass flew everywhere, covering their heads.

"What the hell _is_ she?!" Alan cried, backing away into the wall. "Salem, let her go! The freak's not normal!"

"Why did the lights blow up?" the boy restraining her shouted. "What's going on, Alan?"

"You took him away from me!" Luna hissed, shaking as her vacant expression contorted with rage; muscles tensing with the pain sweeping through her heart, the girl tossed her head back and screeched, ""STOP KILLING EVERYONE I LOVE! JUST GO AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

Erika squeaked in fright before she ducked behind the teacher's desk and covered her head.

With good cause, too: the second those words left Luna's lips, the girl's vibrant yellow irises flared out with a brilliant blue light that obscured the entirety of her eyes, and her long white hair immediately rippled with a surge of power that radiated from of her body and slapped against the air like a drum. Luna took a deep breath and threw her head back, squeezing her glowing eyes shut before letting out a shriek of rage. A violent surge of electricity with lightning-like proportions swept throughout her body: Salem went flying through the window right behind them with a scream, having been blown clean off his feet from the force of the energy: if there hadn't been a window behind him, he would have been killed due to how hard he would have been slammed into the wall.

Another ripping shriek tore from Luna's lips and she clutched her head.

She knew she was losing control of herself, but she no longer cared if they discovered her true nature.

The secret she'd been trying to hide from the world all of her life…

The secret she and the matrons had desperately tried to keep hidden each month at the time of the new moon…

The secret she had been fighting with since she had turned eight years old…

None of it mattered anymore: all she could think about was Bandit and how much she had come to love him.

She ignored the other boys when they bolted.

Electricity shot out of her body and tore chunks out of the brick walls; things began to explode when Luna let out another wail and clutched her head in an effort to control her abilities. However, it was out of her hands now: the only thing she could still do was fall to her knees and scream hysterically as more tears began to fall. She wrapped her arms around herself to keep from shattering into a million pieces, since she really felt as though she would break away into nothingness if she let herself go. That's how badly the pain was cutting into her heart.

The pain that could only come from being completely alone in the world.

Luna's breath was stolen when her long silver hair lifted towards the ceiling in a rush of gale-force wind, and she was blown to her knees when an ethereal set of angel wings exploded out of her back in a shower of crackling red sparks; soon afterwards, sizzling strands of electricity connected her body to walls around her, making her glowing eyes snap open wide. The albino girl immediately tensed and covered her ears, glowing eyes snapping shut as she pressed her head against the ground. Not even a second later, several lightning bolts cracked out of her body and blew out all of the remaining windows in the room before ripping the walls to shreds with thunderous crashes and blinding flashes; the vortex surrounding her threw desks and other projectiles into the ceiling hard enough to latch them there; the very earth seemed to tremble with the force of her pain, intensifying into an earthquake that shook the earth all around her and rumbled into the distance.

The glowing red mark continued winding down, sliding over her throat and into her clothing.

_No more!_ Luna wailed inside her mind, shrieking herself hoarse as her long hair whirled around her face: white fire ignited swirled around her torso like a burning cocoon. When she looked up and saw Erika cowering in the corner with a terrified expression on her pretty face, Luna covered her glowing eyes with a cry.

"NO MORE!" the cursed angel finally shrieked. "I WISH IT WOULD ALL JUST GO AWAY!"

As if responding to her plea, the world disintegrated into white with an eerie ringing silence.

Then, not even a second later, the entire building exploded.


End file.
